Dirty tricks claimed over .wine gTLD project

Jean Guillon, who has been openly working on an idea for a .wine generic top-level domain for the last few years, claims his erstwhile partner in the project has sold him out.
According to Guillon, he worked with an unnamed partner – apparently a big player which had committed to fund the application – for five months.
Guillon says he worked on critical strategic elements of his .wine plan, such as recruiting registrars and finding potential buyers for premium .wine domains worth “hundreds of thousand Euros”.
But because he never signed a contract, Guillon says this partner has now cut him loose and plans to apply for .wine without him, using the knowledge he provided.
He does not reveal the identity of the partner (I have my suspicions) other than to say “there is a very rich organization coming out on the market, with a lot of money to hammer down any competing applicant.”
In a blog post discussing his predicament, he also threatens to reveal his former partner’s strategy to apply for “dozens” of gTLDs.
Guillon says he didn’t sign anything. Presumably that includes an NDA.
Dirty tricks? Sour grapes?
With only one side of the story it’s difficult to say right now.

8 Comments Tagged: jean guillon, wine

Dyson says new gTLDs will kill the DNS

Former ICANN chair Esther Dyson thinks apps and new gTLDs will cause internet users to abandon domain names.
In an article for TechPresident entitled “Is the Open Web Doomed? Open Your Eyes and Relax“, Dyson writes:

Right now, we’re moving slowly from open data and APIs and standards, to a world of Facebook and apps. We’re likely to see abandonment of the DNS by consumers both because of those apps, and a tragedy of the commons where new Top-Level Domain names (.whatevers and .brands) confuse users and lead to more use of the search box or links within apps.

The point seems to run counter to the rest of her argument, which is that the open web will continue to be used even while Facebook carves away its own little corner of it and that the whole “walled garden vs open web” war is fought in cycles.
(At least, I think that’s what she’s saying, it’s not an easy read.)
I always find these arguments confusing.
If consumers are not using the DNS, where are these “search boxes” and “links within apps” sending them? IP addresses? How do the consumers know they got to where they wanted to go?

2 Comments Tagged: esther dyson, ICANN, new gTLDs

ICANN worried about defensive gTLDs

Why is ICANN so misunderstood?
That’s the question at the heart of a public comment period into concerns about “defensive” new generic top-level domain applications that the organization opened up last night.
ICANN wants to know why so many companies seem to think they’ll need to apply for a dot-brand gTLD even though they don’t want one.

there are reports that parties believe that they will need to submit defensive gTLD applications to protect their trademarks, regardless of whether they are interested in using or developing a gTLD.
ICANN seeks public comment on the sources of this perception and how it can be addressed.

The comment period serves three purposes — it’s designed to raise awareness about rights protection mechanisms as well as soliciting input about defensive applications.
It will also let ICANN show the US Congress, which is worried about this kind of thing, that it’s doing something to address the problem.
So why are so many people worried about the perceived need to defensively apply for dot-brands?
The main answer, I think, is pretty straightforward:
The Applicant Guidebook is 349 pages long.
Hardly anybody has read the damn thing, not even some of the “experts” that persist on appearing in the media to complain about numeric gTLDs or to confidently predict GE and LG will apply for dot-brands.
So what do people do? They get somebody else who has read it to explain what it means.
These somebody elses are either consultants and registry providers, which are financially incentivized to get companies to apply, or they’re organizations that want the whole program stopped, which are not above deliberately misrepresenting the rules in order to whip up outrage.
I’m not casting every consultant in the same light here, of course. Many will turn away business if it’s not a good fit, but let’s not pretend that there hasn’t been scaremongering.
And let’s remember that for most regular companies registering a domain name is not an opportunity, it’s a headache. It’s at best a minor irritation and at worst a costly shakedown.
That thinking has clearly translated into the new gTLD space.
Poorly informed people think they’re being asked to register a very expensive domain name, and in their experience registering a domain name is a defensive measure 99% of the time.
Because ICANN has spent the last six months painstakingly avoiding saying anything positive about new gTLDs, it’s been left to the consultants and registries to try to explain the opportunities.
They’re understandably looked on with suspicion, and not only because of the aforementioned distrust of the industry – this new gTLD thing is unproven and there’s a perception that previous gTLDs have “failed” because you don’t see a .biz every time you turn on the TV.
Anyway, speaking of shakedowns, DomainIncite PRO subscribers have access to an in-depth analysis of scenarios in which “defensive” applications may and may not be appropriate. Read it here.

3 Comments Tagged: defensive, ICANN, new gTLDs

RIAA backs .music new gTLD bid

The Recording Industry Association of America has picked a side. It’s supporting Far Further’s application for the .music generic top-level domain, according to the company.
The RIAA is one of over a dozen music industry groups that are currently listed as supporters of the Far Further bid.
Among them is the influential International Federation of Phonographic Industries and The Recording Academy, which hands out the Grammys.
The support was hard won, according to Far Further president John Styll.
“The RIAA put together a loose coalition of organizations from sectors from around the world and ran a pretty intensive RFI process,” he said.
The company beat off competition from several other respondents and received word that the RIAA would support its .music application a few months ago, he said.
It’s been clear for some time that any .music applicant that does not have the backing of the RIAA will very likely get beaten up by the notoriously protective organization instead.
The RIAA wrote to the US Department of Commerce last August to demand that any music-themed gTLD should implement “heightened security measures” to prevent copyright infringement.
And that’s pretty much what Far Further has promised.
Its .music would be restricted, along the same lines as gTLDs such a .pro, to card-carrying members of what the company calls “accredited Global Music Community Members”.
“It’s not open to everyone,” Styll said. “You’d have to join an organization.”
Amateur bands would have to be members of an accredited songwriters association to get a .music address, for example.
In addition, the content of .music web sites would be policed in a similar way to .xxx or .cat, with regular spidering to ensure the content does not break the rules.
“We’re definitely looking at content, and besides the vetting process, in the registrant agreement there’ll be a warrant you’re not going to violate anyone’s intellectual property rights,” said Styll.
“We’re retaining the right to conduct searches,” he said. “If we find evidence of infringing activity we’ll give you the opportunity to correct that, or we can take down the site.”
Far Further is not the only known .music applicant, of course.
Constantine Roussos of Music.us and MyTLD has been passionately campaigning for the gTLD for years, and his enthusiasm has not waned even if his chances have.
“We’re still going after .music,” he confirmed yesterday. He added that he expects it to be a two-horse race, given these recent developments.
Make no mistake, with backing from the RIAA and other influential industry groups Far Further is now the runaway favorite in the battle for .music. Roussos has quite a fight on his hands.
DomainIncite PRO subscribers can read more about it here.

8 Comments Tagged: .music, far further, ICANN, ifpi, music.us, new gTLDs, piracy, riaa

ICANN board seat up for reelection

ICANN’s Address Supporting Organization has kicked off an election for one of its two official representatives on the ICANN board of directors.
Director Ray Plzak sees his three-year term come to an end in June. He’s standing for reelection, but has competition from three other candidates.
The ASO represents the oft-overlooked IP address side of the ICANN house. Its members belong to the five Regional Internet Registries that are responsible for doling out IP space.
In this election, all four candidates are from ARIN, the North American RIR community: Plzak, Eric Brunner-Williams, Martin Levy and William Manning.
The winner will be selected by the ASO’s ruling Address Council in May. Until April 19, the ASO wants public comments on the candidates.

Comment Tagged: aso, election, ICANN

Verisign: our DNS was not hacked

Verisign today reiterated that the recently revealed 2010 security breaches on its corporate network did not affect its production domain name system services.
In a statement, Verisign said:

After a thorough analysis of the attacks, Verisign stated in 2011, and reaffirms, that we do not believe that the operational integrity of the Domain Name System (DNS) was compromised.
We have a number of security mechanisms deployed in our network to ensure the integrity of the zone files we publish. In 2005, Verisign engineered real-time validation systems that were designed to detect and mitigate both internal and external attacks that might attempt to compromise the integrity of the DNS.

The statement followed several news reports that covered the hacks and speculated about the mayhem that could ensue if Verisign’s root or .com zone systems were ever breached.
The information the company has released so far suggests that the attacks were probably against back-office targets, such as user desktops, rather than its sensitive network operations centers.

Comment Tagged: .com, root zone, security, verisign

New gTLD applications briefly vanish after glitch

A software glitch in ICANN’s TLD Application System was apparently to blame for a number of “disappearing” new generic top-level domain applications today.
At about 4pm UTC today, two Neustar executives tweeted that some applications, among them the company’s own .neustar dot-brand application, had vanished from their TAS accounts.
TAS is the web-based application, presented as a series of questions, which applicants must use to file and pay for their new gTLD applications.
Several other applicants were also believed to be affected.
It took about two hours for ICANN to sort the problem out.
A spokesperson later said: “A display issue occurred in TAS, it has been corrected. All data is now visible & no information was lost.”
It’s the second technical problem to be reported in TAS this week.
On Tuesday, consultant Fairwinds Partners reported that some applicants had problems filling out their TAS profiles, preventing them from completing their applications.
Frankly, I’d be more surprised if this kind of thing didn’t happen.
TAS is brand new custom-built software, and as anyone who’s ever written software will tell you, no amount of testing can substitute for production use when it comes to finding bugs.

1 Comment Tagged: icann. new gtlds, tas

.sas could be the first contested dot-brand gTLD

Scandinavian Airlines System Group is to apply to ICANN for a generic top-level domain, .sas, in what could turn out to be the first example of a contested dot-brand.
The company has agreed to explain its thinking during The Top Level, a conference happening in London later this month.
The agenda for the meeting states that SAS will deliver a presentation entitled: “SAS: Why we made the strategic decision to apply”.
Linn Drivdal Mellbye of conference organizer CloudNames, the Norwegian registry services provider, confirmed in a tweet minutes ago that the sought-after gTLD is .sas.
The string “SAS” has multiple meanings.
Indeed, for about three minutes this post originally stated — wrongly — that the applicant giving the presentation was the North Carolina software giant SAS Institute.
If the American SAS also applies for .sas, it may have to fight it out with the airline at an auction.
SAS — the Scandinavian one — becomes the second dot-brand applicant to come out in as many days, following StarHub’s news yesterday.
The company is based in Stockholm and employs about 25,000 people.

3 Comments Tagged: .sas, dot-brand, ICANN, new gTLDs, sas institute

.com passed 100 million mark in October

Verisign’s .com registry passed the 100 million domains under management milestone in October, the company’s monthly ICANN registry report revealed today.
The exact number of domains under management in .com on October 31 was 100,540,971, having increased by a net 690,243 registrations over the course of the month.
That’s a pretty big deal, but for some reason Verisign didn’t make any announcements about it at the time.
ICANN registry reports, which all contracted gTLDs must submit, are filed three months after the fact, for competitive reasons.
The number of domains in the .com zone file – which is what most people track to follow the fortunes of TLD operators — differs from the total number in the registry.
Domains which do not have name servers or are in special registry status codes such as Pending Delete do not show up in the zone file.
Today, RegistrarStats reports 100,052,046 domains in the .com zone, while HosterStats’ count yesterday was 100,045,666. The registry is likely to have about 1.5 million more, however.

Comment Tagged: .com, verisign

Startup America obtains s.co and offers free .co domains to entrepreneurs

Startup America, an initiative to encourage entrepreneurship in the US, has relocated to S.co and will offer a free one-year .co domain registration to registered members.
For .CO Internet, the .co registry, this is a pretty sweet marketing coup.
The Startup America Partnership is a private initiative created a year ago in response to White House calls for grassroots economic stimulus.
It’s chaired by former AOL chief Steve Case, and has over a billion dollars in support commitments from tech heavyweights such as IBM, Intel and HP.
Signing up to the program grants entrepreneurs resources such as discounted accounting software and access to workshops. Now, they’ll also get a free .co domain for a year, if they want one.
As part of the deal, Startup America, which was located at startupamericapartnership.org, can now be found at s.co.
While .CO has been commanding prices for single-letter .co domains of, anecdotally, over a million dollars, I’d be surprised if any significant money has changed hands here.
For a Colombian TLD to become part of a flag-waving American initiative such as this, giving it access to its core target customer base… well, let’s just say that even if it gave away s.co for free, which I think it probably did, it would still be a very smart deal from .CO’s end.

Comment Tagged: .co, .co internet, s.co, startup america